The Girl in the Woods
by Lee Savage
Summary: A village girl named Anana begins to have hallucinations.
1. Chapter One

The wrongness hits Anana as soon as she wakes up. Hours ago, she laid in the bed and heard the two brothers shuffling about and closing the bedroom door. The animals began howling and yipping, and she heard the men try to hush them to no avail. Anana immediately went back to sleep, hugging her pillow and curling up, her back to the entryway.

She actually wakes back up exceptionally early for her usual schedule. Normally, she'll get up around noon. For the first three years of her stay here, she would often sleep in until the afternoon. She doesn't know why she's always sad, doesn't know much about herself. Only that she woke up one day in this bed with a bad headache. Immediately, she rushed to the adjacent bathroom to vomit, stumbling over a rug.

There was this lanky dog with mottled fur that began pacing from the bathroom to the bedroom again and again. The bathroom is connected to the bedroom by a white door with the bedroom leading into the kitchen area. So the dog, which would reach her hips in height if she'd been standing, started to bark. This worried man entered the room, told the dog to quiet down. He knelt down and rubbed Anana's back tenderly. His other hand pushed the hair away from her face. She smelled of sweat. Something hit against the toilet seat, a stone hanging from a blue ribbon tied tightly around her throat.

But when she wakes up today, there's a dog sitting on her head. Most of the pets here are her own doing. She finds herself being melancholy, missing people she can't remember, so she feeds strays. This particular one is small and brown; it has a big snout and a graying muzzle. The fleas are getting bad, and it doesn't help that this one dog needs to be knotted up right beside her at all times. Not that she doesn't appreciate the company, but Anana often has this crawling sensation on her and smacks at her skin to make the itching stop, hoping to smash the fleas under her palm. Her brother-in-law tells her that it won't work to just try to slap them away. Not that she listens.

Luckily, Anana doesn't feel like scuttling out of her own skin this morning. She stares at the clock, closes her eyes to wait for the burning in them to pass. It's a little after nine. The room smells musty. When she's seeing and lucid, she can make out the dust floating where the curtains part as a bit of sunshine drifts in. There's the barking, but she hears no attempts to quiet the dogs. Anana sits up and kicks the covers off, muttering to herself. Crackling out and sputtering like it's dying, the radio is playing. Her husband's side of the bad is made, the white, motheaten sheets straightened. She stretches and yawns, walking over to the closet to pick out her clothes. Her hair is loose at her shoulders.

"Noatak? Hakoda?" she calls over the frantic animals.

As she walks out to the kitchen and leans forward to peer through the window, she listens. The dogs have taken to whimpering, and that nervous one who'd been with her immediately after she lost her memory nervously trots from the front door to the master bedroom. A spider's web hangs lazily on the outside of the glass. The sky, the spindly trees, the shadows. All gray. Noatak told her last night that he didn't think it'd rain for awhile. Well, it's certainly missing a good chance to do so.

Their satomobile is gone, and Anana's eyebrows furrow in bemusement. If any of them have to leave, it's not regularly that the brothers do anything together. They act like acquaintances, and that's all. Neither of them have work today. It's the one day they all stay home, and they don't need much, she thinks. Their cupboards are full enough.

At first, it's a great relief to be alone. She always feels trapped in, so now she can raid the pantry and traipse around however she wishes. Not that they constantly admonish her, but she constantly feels her husband and brother watching, waiting for a reason to coddle her. She has regained her appetite; Anana has only just gone out into the village—Hangzhou—to befriend other people about a year ago, confined and sad in the company of several scraggly beasts. They're isolated, down a path with overgrown brush encircling the house. It's quiet, this deep into the woods, but the primeval, half-formed atmosphere lingers heavily on her shoulders.

She grows ill often, and Anana hates the feeling of being babied, like when her husband—or at least the man who says he's her husband—talks to her like a child. She's twenty-two, for the spirits' sakes. She can put salve on her own wounds without going to them for the glowy water.

No recollection of her past. It frustrates her that the accident—whatever happened—rendered her unable to even remember when she married Hakoda. What did she like to do then? Did she always feel this alone? It bothers her all of the time, until she runs herself in mental circles.

A tickle in her throat, she opens a kitchen cabinet. Her shoulders tensing, she can still hear the radio with it's flickering signal, and Anana slides a steak knife out. She figures that it's not irrational to be uneasy when you're alone if you've been sick and therefore more vulnerable physically. The brothers can bend and she can't, so she has very few immediate resources to ward off any intruders. She's discovered that she has quite a grip though, and she won't be caught without a way to fend off trouble. Apparently, the last time she'd been unprepared, it had cost Anana her mind.

Looking around at the black, pleading eyes of her pets, she murmurs, "What's up with you guys?"

She steps onto the porch, and the screen door creaks and shudders as she closes it. In the yard, from what she can see, there's a plump, long-haired cat glowering at her from its spot on the edge of the property, it's orange fur in stark contrast to the bleak surroundings. Hmph, typical. The other cats either lounge on the porch or somewhere at the places where their yard meets the woods.

White rocks are scattered throughout the yard, which is mostly dirt and low grass, and before Anana descends the porch, she smiles when a rather large, snow-pale dog with a broad head greets her, her tail thumping excitedly along the house wall.

Anana pats her head and scratches her ear. Kya has a scar across her left shoulder, the remnants of a deep gash where some old drunk attacked her for entering his yard. Anana found her cradled in a clutch of dead branches. She'd been a puppy and still hefty. It'd been in the dead of winter, about six months ago.

Kya doesn't follow, just sits with her tail still wagging. She's a reliable companion, but a shoddy guard dog. When it comes to protection, Alatna and Spud are far more aggressive toward strangers.

"Lutak, Alatna, Spud?" The wind grasps her words and slings them back. Her hair blows in her face, and she unceremoniously spits and sputters and gets the strands out of her way, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, a sheen of saliva trailing on her skin.

Kya is Anana's favorite. Neither Noatak nor Hakoda are particularly affectionate with the dogs. While they aren't cruel, they ignore them and Noatak spins offhanded quips into the air about feeding them enough to make a few good meals for winter. Anana has to remind him that his joke-telling ability is lacking.

A black cat with white fur dappling his chin and chest strolls past her. Buttermilk, who often only appears in the evenings ever since his, uh, milk jugs have arrived. He's mostly friendly, but he doesn't spare her a glance this morning.

There's barking in the woods behind her, beyond a pile of fallen branches. Anana turns and looks at the dip of the hill, then lifts her chin, expecting to see something leering in the gloomy trees. With her free hand, she picks up a white stone and throws it into the seemingly empty space of nature before her. Anana partly expects for it to get thrown back to her. She keeps looking warily back onto the porch, which wraps around the building, because she hears Kya's whines. Birds surrounding the area squawk; she's read stories about birds in a swamp that mimic a person's screams.

She startles when an acorn lands at her feet. Exhaling, she glares at the rustling branches. Stupid rabbit-squirrels. She catches a glimpse of one, this fast shadow out of the corner of her vision.

Her attention transitions to where she hears the loud barking appoaching closer. "Spud? Spud!" A black dog appears, bounding toward her with mud on his nose and a wiry pelt. He slows, happily lumbering to greet her, licking her hand and lifting a paw.

"Hey there." She walks, hoping the dog will follow her into the house. "Spud, come on. Come on, boy!"

The dog merely sits on his haunches and watches as she retreats, his wide eyes set on her.

"Or stay there," Anana says. "Er, that's okay too."

Tentatively, he approaches. She's never been harsh with any of them, so why is he cautious? On his way, Spud hikes his leg and urinates on a patch of grass.

"Um, good boy?" She walks up the stairs, opens the door, letting the black dog in before latching it behind her. Anana flicks the kitchen light on and sits at the dining table, setting the knife on it. It's a rectangular slab of wood, chipped and worn. She waits ten, maybe twenty minutes before hearing the crunching sound of a vehicle approaching. Anana stands, waiting for the rickety satomobile to stop and for Noatak and Hakoda to get out. Something in her heart calms, her body no longer struggling to draw breaths. Not that she can't handle some creep, but she'd rather they go for the other two creeps first.

Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh.

When she holds open the door, Noatak examines her. "I didn't think you'd be up."

She shakes her head, amused as Hakoda and his brother carry various items in. Jars of peppers and sacks of bruised tomatoes and browning fruit. "It took both of you to go shopping?"

Noatak says, "It's a heavy assortment of items."

"We don't really need that much," Anana counters. "It's still summer, and this'll be gone like a month before we need to stock up." Noatak shrugs dismissively, and she fumes as they enter the dining room and set the items on the table. They arrange the food in the kitchen cupboards, and Anana notes that there is a despairingly sparse amount of meat products they have to freeze.

"Hakoda isn't especially gifted at picking out fruit." Noatak smirks as he receives a withering look from his brother.

When they're finished, Anana rests her elbows on the table as she sits, a fatigue washing over her. Even though she hasn't been up for long. "You could've helped him."

"Yes, Noatak. You weren't there."

"I was busy getting new tires." As Noatak speaks, a finger moves in the air, as if he's mapping his actions. "I dropped him off. We've only been out for, hm, two hours." He frowns when he notices the knife. "What is that for?"

Anana shrugs with a half-grin. "Oh, nothing."

* * *

The trees nestle cricket-frogs that sing as the sun lowers; the evening casts a purple shade on their home, which is brown and old. She doesn't know anything about the previous owners, except that they must've had a good portion of glorious privacy if they ever had the need to argue with a stubborn husband.

"Why won't you tell me?" Anana shouts. Hakoda slouches into his hands, his fingers rubbing circles into his temple. He's sitting in one of the rockers, and she stands in front of him with stiffened shoulders. They used to have a small table out here, but they hardly used it, so they gave it to the elderly couple down the road, but they have these two old rockers that were woven together with a lax amount of precision.

Once she marched out, she saw the shift in his eyes. He knew what she'd have to say, and she hadn't cared.

"Anana," Hakoda says reedily, pressing his palms together, fingers intertwined, "please listen." He always says her name like it gets stuck in his throat, laced with uncertainty.

"I'm Water Tribe, okay. Got that. Did I come from your tribe?"

"Dear," he says in his schmoozing voice, his "just listen to reason" tone, and oh man, he's asking for it. "It doesn't matter where we're from, only that we've made a new start here." Evasive, Hakoda refuses to look directly at her, though his eyes peer straight ahead. He told her that they came from the tundra. Any details about the brothers' time at their old home are vague.

It was horrible and abusive, that's it, and he'll never speak about it again. All he wants desperately, Hakoda says with a rare, hopeful trembling in his voice, is to reunite with his brother in peace. In the snow and underneath the spirit lights, he sometimes considered death to be his only respite, since it'd taken his brother. He says these cryptic things, but he won't elaborate.

He asks her why she must fight it—why she must fight them. It's too exhausting.

Anana huffs. "Did I work? I should. I hate just doing nothing."

"You don't have to work. Just relax and enjoy your youth."

"I'm not some prissy little doll, and I'm not a child!" Hakoda moves to touch her hand, and she recoils, stepping back and knocking over a bucket.

"You've been sick." There's a plea in his voice. No, Anana won't concede. She won't live attached to them. How is it so bad for them all to have a place in supporting each other?

"I have a right to know about my own past! It's mine!" She's fully cognizant of the fact that she's throwing her hands up like an indignant child, but it truly, truly isn't fair. They have no right to barge in and decide which parts of her past she gets to know about.

She stomps into the house, glaring at Noatak, who sits with his arms crossed loosely. He regards her with no strong indication of his thoughts. Anana doesn't even think he experiences any emotions. Of course he heard everything. The front door is wide open, kept in place by a heavy container, letting fresh air (and bugs) in as the dogs mull in and out at leisure.

"You don't have to protect me," she says acidly. "What do you not want to tell me?" She advances, hair in her face. "What are you keeping from me?"

Noatak's stupid caterpillar eyebrows lower, his voice sharpening with a warning. "Don't even start."

There's nothing patronizing, oozing like when she pokes a scrape that hasn't scabbed over. He's at least honest about being a heartless jerk.

"Anana, there are forces out there that will crush you under their thumb."

Fumbling for a brilliant retort, something to kick him off of his pedestal, she says, "I-I'll leave. Start a new life, and there's nothing you can do about it."

He stands, and she absolutely will not flinch back, even though he is considerably taller and more muscular than her. "Why?" Whatever dark undercurrent is in Noatak's voice, she doesn't like it. "So you can go somewhere where your happiness is discarded?" Anana hates when they have those voices. She likes to exchange heated words instead of them getting all lofty. Like they care if she's happy if they'll keep her hidden away. On a leash.

"Why?" Her voice just splinters, all resolve sloughing away. Anana twists her hands in her hair and pulls, and she shakes her head and closes her eyes, hoping to dam up the flood of tears. "Why won't you tell me?" She deflates, hate freezing over into something worse, something she's grown accustomed to languishing in. "Did you know my parents? Are they even still alive?"

"I don't know," Noatak says, his tone clipped. "Hakoda genuinely cares about you."

"If he cared, he wouldn't keep these things from me," Anana says pointedly, "and neither would you." She begins to draw into herself when Noatak rests a hand on her shoulder, which is remarkably unusual for him.

She shoves him away. "Don't touch me." Wanting to scream, Anana storms into her bedroom and collapses onto the bed, not even bothering to change her clothing.

Tomorrow, it'll start all over again. The lull that drives her into madness. There'll be apologies. Hakoda'll buy her lotuses and orchids and some stinky perfume, even though she prefers food or something cool. Her fists aching with this indescribable sensation, she punches her pillow to unleash the itching in her hands and arms, her muscles loosening.

"Are you okay?" a voice asks softly. She looks up to see Hakoda in a blurry outline.

Anana snarls. "Leave. Me. Alone."

"I'm sorry."

His voice is laden with sorrow, but she's too agitated to discern if he's being truthful. Unsettled, she turns her head to the window as he departs. Through the blinds, she swears she sees these two lights like golden orbs. She shakes her head, wiping away the tears and snot as her face lands on her pillow. Anana welcomes the encroaching darkness.


	2. Chapter Two

On the seventh month of the year, the village holds a spirit festival. Anana enjoys it because that time is a chance to be free, as long as she can depart from her two extra limbs and lose them in the crowd. She ignores the sweat under her clothes as the sun hangs in the sky. Children and their pets scrabble around for shiny pebbles and coins, leaving little puffs of dirt discharged into the air. Anana tucks her hands into her pockets, which are empty, and kneads the fabric as if to ascertain that the fabric is still there. Hakoda handles most of the stitching, though he says with a chuckle that he's a bit rusty.

In the village center, where the most popular site is the tavern (naturally), the people mull around, some sitting closer to their shrines to reflect, and Anana comes alive when she inhales the enriching scent of incense mingled with meal offerings for the _pretas_, or hungry ghosts. Spirits who were too wanting in life and wander the spirit world with eternal hunger and thirst because their throats are too thin. Supposedly, their bellies are distended from greed and they are pallid and gaunt. Some crawl instead of walk. Anana doesn't get how they can eat mortal food if they can't eat spirit world food. But what do spirits even eat? These are just stories anyway. A bunch of people probably sneak out at night and snatch up, hoard the elaborate dishes for themselves.

An array of trays adorned with food line the ground, surrounded by displays of flowers in all hues. At dusk, the civilians will go to the shore and light these specially crafted lanterns with a base meant to resemble lotus petals. They'll set them on the water to illuminate a passage for the spirits who still need to hop over.

It's all a bit gruesome and in-depth for Anana, the whole intricate story. She doesn't hate reading or story-telling or even frightening tales, but she prefers things with ongoing action, not things meant to sadden her. After all, she's lonely enough, so she doesn't need her escapism to lock her up inside.

The celebration and honoring of the dead is a peaceful thing, but she has nobody to mourn, she thinks somewhat traitorously as she watches Noatak talking to some well-dressed people. Though she likes their house and wouldn't want to leave, she doesn't get why they have such a humble place when Noatak is on the village council and the rest of the representatives look so uppity. There's very limited resources in Hangzhou, and many young people move away to pursue a new life and never return. The closest university is several towns away.

It seems odd to have all of these tales about ghouls and death and for the atmosphere to be generally pleasant with few tears, but remembering the lives of loved one gives some sort of solace. She notices that her husband kneels amongst an arrangement of orchids and her heart sinks.

Anana clasps the smooth, light-blue stone that rests on her collarbone. She doesn't hate them; not enough to want them dead. She's supposed to love Hakoda, and maybe she did before this mysterious accident, whatever in the Avatar's name that was. Wait, what is the Avatar's name? Kara, Katara, Katana?

Though there's clamoring all about her, the world hushes in her head as Anana stiffly makes her way to Hakoda. She slinks through gaggles of people. He doesn't see her approach, and she brushes her hand on his back. Anana doesn't think she's been around in a past life, but she's heard that people who have can remember their former friends and lovers vividly.

When she looks up, Noatak is staring at her. She can't read him that well, but he's thoughtful, she supposes. Hakoda searches her with his eyes, confused and almost begging. Anana leaves him and goes to wander. Hangzhou swells with the scents of incense and flowers and fresh food. Her mouth waters. She wonders just how angry the spirits will get if she scarfs down part of their meal arrangement. Surely good spirits share, right?

"Hi, Anana." A girl with long hair and circles under eyes greets her. Her dress is too large.

"Hi, Ming. What's up?" Anana met the girl last year. She's quiet and distant, and though Noatak isn't particularly loud and Hakoda has these things he keeps apart from his persona as the hardworking husband, she enjoys the presence of another woman. While she's not too girly, there are issues she can't discuss and secrets she can't confide to those of the opposite sex comfortably.

Ming smiles dolefully. "I went to Tai Shin and saw a moving picture." Behind them, a group of men and women are burning fake bank notes on the soil.

"Oh, cool," Anana replies, shuffling her feet, tracing patterns in the dirt. Ming knits her hands together and rests them at the back of her head.

"It was dreadful."

"Well, uh, that's, um. You know," she says, "I didn't think spirits could get hungry." Anana grimaces as she remembers some of her worst nightmares. "I hope they have bathrooms."

Anana might not be able to tell great jokes, but they should have special tomato harvests so she has something to throw at Noatak whenever he tries to crack a funny. Ming laughs shortly and asks, "How have you been?"

And there it goes. That flare of bitterness. Anana slumps and pouts. "Mostly stuck in the house."

A hand pats her arm. "Maybe we can go together someday. To a moving picture, I mean."

Anana sighs and runs a hand through her hair. It's braided, and she'd had an awful time styling it this morning, throwing the ribbons in the bathroom sink innumerable times and cursing to herself, wanting to just give up. Her face contorted into these ugly little expressions as her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she'd rather do it herself than ask one of the brothers to do it for her, so she persisted.

"It's just, I don't like being hovered over. They always have to make sure I'm okay."

"I guess it's better than having nobody. Who loves you in any form, I mean. Like having no friends or nobody to look after you." Noatak and Hakoda remind her about how they should all be happy. They're lucky, she tells herself. Maybe one day Anana will believe it.

"I'm sorry, Ming." Wham, the guilt. All she does is complain about her own problems and roll into a ball. Maybe Noatak and Hakoda are so clingy because they have serious issues because of the hints they've dropped about how they were raised, yet it barely ever occurs to her. She's always stewing in indignation. So now she can consume her thoughts with how bad she feels for being so selfish instead of dwelling on the sadness of others. Oops.

"No, no," Ming says kindly, "I wasn't talking about that. Just that they do it out of care, but maybe you should just put your foot down more often and they'll get the point if they love you." Love. With two old dudes who are afraid that she'll skip town or something and won't tell her about the past except for really small things. That's not love. It's control and it's repulsive and her stomach turns and she just wants to escape.

"Ming." Anana pulls her friend aside. "I have something I need to tell you."

"Are you all right?"

Shaking her head and staring at nothing for a moment, Anana says, "I've been having these visions. Seeing things while I'm awake."

Perplexed, her friend supplies after a pause, "That's—are you sure you weren't dreaming? Only the Avatar and really spiritual people can see stuff like that."

One day, she must've taken the wrong combination of herbs for her cold, but Anana woke up just after going to sleep and wandered over to her bedroom window. It was like she couldn't look directly outside. Though midnight had barely drifted past, everything was like the sun right before her, startling, bright, and she could make out the form of a woman with in green garments and white face-paint. Hakoda didn't stir, but she retreated back to the bed, folded into herself under the covers and squeezed her eyes shut like a toddler wanting to fool their parents into thinking that they're asleep, yet unable to possess that subtlety. When her throat tightened, Anana breathed deliberately, slowly, and the air felt cold on the roof of her mouth.

Anana swallows, taking Ming's hands in hers insistently. "I sometimes see these black—blobs. Like oil, really dark and they move like liquid and have these bright eyes."

Ming bites her lip. "There's these things called _hunduns_. They're chaos spirits. They were made before the first warrior broke the world egg and the earth and sky were formed, so they have no true shape. But that's just a myth. Maybe you should consult your husband, ask him if he or your brother-in-law are having similar hallucinations." Hallucinations, so Ming doesn't believe her. Swell.

Anana steps back. Coldly, she says, "I'm not crazy."

Ming bashfully lowers her head and scratches her arm. "I'm not saying you are, but maybe it's just stress. I don't know, but you just don't seem like a really mystical sort of person. Not that it's bad, that is, to be earthly."

"I can't tell them," Anana says, tilting her head in the general direction where Hakoda and Noatak are. "They'll freak out."


End file.
